Molly and Kitty, or Peasant Life in Ireland; with Other Tales — Reading Companion

In one of the most desolate regions of Ireland, scarcely ever visited even by the most inquisitive traveller or the most eager sportsman, stood, nearly sixty years ago, a row of low and miserable hovels. They were formed of rough stones rudely piled together, and, at a little distance, looked more like the heaps of stones which in ancient times were thrown together to mark the spot upon which slept the dead, than houses intended to shelter human beings. Upon a closer examination, however, an observer might perceive, if the mould, moss, and mud did not succeed in concealing them from his searching glance, rude doors made of unplaned boards roughly nailed together, without either latch or bolt, with little holes irregularly bored through them to admit the blessed light of heaven, which cheers the poor as well as the rich, within these dark and miserable walls. Notwithstanding this proof, he might still continue to gaze on in doubt, asking his sinking heart if it could be indeed possible that these unformed masses of stone were really intended for homes for beings endowed with quick susceptibilities, and the godlike powers of human reason. But as he inspected the tottering roof, thatched with rushes and covered with turf, he might observe heavy clouds of thick gray smoke curling and eddying from a hole in the top; then his last doubt must cease, and, breathing a deep sigh for the wretchedness surrounding him, he is forced to confess that nowhere throughout the whole extent of civilized Europe are such comfortless dwellings for men and women to be found.

Only those who know something of the poverty and misery endured by the Irish people, even at the present date, when the ardent friends of humanity have succeeded in winning for this oppressed and injured race some of the political rights hitherto denied them in consequence of their obstinate adherence to the faith of their ancestors, can form any conception of the state of utter destitution in which they formerly lived.

In one of the hovels which we have just described, and whose interior is if possible more repulsive than its exterior, two forms present themselves to our readers. The one is that of a young maiden scarcely sixteen, who kneels upon the earthen hearth, close beside a suspended kettle. The glimmering fire, which she now succeeds in stirring into a bright flame, shows us a slender form, a soft and clear blue eye, long, fair hair, and a pale, pale face, whose features are rendered strangely attractive by the deep melancholy imprinted upon their youthful lines. Her left arm, whose dazzlingly white skin glitters through the holes in the coarse, dark, worn-out garment, holds a child, who stretches one of its little meagre hands towards the cheerful blaze, while with the other it tries to cover its naked knees with its short, torn frock. It shudders as it finds all its efforts vain. Cowering and sinking upon the shoulder of the elder, it murmurs,--

"I am so cold, Molly!--oh! so, so cold, Molly! and so, so hungry!"

"Poor little Kitty!" answered the elder maiden, gently, "have patience only for a few minutes more; the potatoes in the pot are already beginning to boil, and on Sunday you shall have something more than potatoes, for father promised to bring a little piece of pork for you home with him."

"Molly, won't he bring some stuff with him too, to make a new frock for me, for this one is so short that it won't cover my legs? He promised me he would, and father has never told a single story to his poor little blind Kitty."

"We will see about that," answered the sister, soothingly; yet in every tone which breathed so softly from the quivering lips might be read the secret of the bitter suffering which she struggled to repress. "If our father really promised it to you, he will be sure to keep his word. But don't you remember, as he was going away, he called back to you through the open door, 'If I can possibly do it, my little Kitty!'"

The child raised her large, sad eyes towards the face of her sister, while the big tears rolled rapidly over her sunken cheeks; at last she stammered through her broken sobs,--

"Are we, then, so very poor, Molly?"

"Oh! very, very poor indeed, Kitty."